CB: “Why I should direct X.” Ha! Loopholes!
It’s funny, because I’ve completed four feature-length screenplays. (Two of which are actually reasonably good. The old adage that everybody has to write at least one shit screenplay before they can write a good one is too generous by half, in my case literally.) But I’ve been notoriously unlucky in Hollywood beating me to the punch.
Fadeaway, for example, was a story about an assassin trying to kill the President of the United States – with the ability to teleport, which he got as a result of an illegal dark-sector government lab experiment. It was basically written around three or four set-pieces using the teleportation to best cinematic effect. Then Bryan Singer includes the “Nightcrawler invades the White House” sequence in X2 and there’s a screenplay that basically becomes obsolete (or at least perceived as a ripoff too greatly to be made for a couple decades) overnight.
More recently, Midnight Men, the story about a world where vampires took over, and which has been a side project I return to whenever I get stalled on something else (it’s about 60 percent done at this point), is now completely unmakeable thanks to Daybreakers, which seriously looks to use maybe eighty-five percent of my story beats. Admittedly, in mine the vampire world was self-sustaining as a result of blood cloning factories, the human resistance operated entirely in secret, and the death of the vampire race was essentially long-term and built-in rather than a scarcity of food supply, but the basic story beats are all there. Which, on the one hand it’s nice that somebody liked the same ideas I liked well enough to get a budget (and come on, Daybreakers looks pretty cool), but on the other hand it’s still annoying.
And of course there’s Al’Rashad, the pseudo-Arabic-meets-Vikingish fantasy epic that was four-fifths finished – on September 10, 2001. (I finished it anyway, but knew it wouldn’t be filmable for years. I need to go back and fix up some parts at some point; looking back at it, you can see where it’s still rough. I wasn’t nearly as seasoned a writer then. Or maybe I’ll turn it into a comic or novel at some point – but it would need reworking. I was really in a visual place for it.)
Anyway, this is getting away from the actual question of “why I should direct X,” but most existing properties I don’t have any interest in making or have already been done. The only existing properties I’d still consider tackling as a writer/director1 are Green Lantern, The Prisoner, and Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (maybe Good Omens, but there is always talk about Terry Gilliam doing that one, and I would dearly love to see that). Besides, knowing that I’m capable of directing – because I’ve done it – is different from wanting to do it. The creative control is glorious; the on-set responsibility, onerous.
- Because there’s a line of people asking me to do both jobs, you see. [↩]
Related Articles
20 users responded in this post
I feel that pain. I was about 6500 words into a novel about vampires attacking an oil drilling town above the Arctic Circle when Thirty Days of Night was announced.
I’m with you on the directing bit. I made a short ten minute film for a class in high school, which I wrote about half, shot about 90% of and directed and editied the whole thing. And it was a bitch getting people together, organizing them, finding locations, props; I’m suprised I got it done and in two days no less. After I’d got it “in the can” most of my friends where begging to do another, but I knew it would be impossible once we got in college and no chance when we graduated. And I’d say mine was the best though I do say so myself (most of the others where dating game or COPS rip offs, where I had a semi-original story).
“…Al’Rashad…”
Dude, I didn’t know that you wrote _The 13th Warrior_.
“which seriously looks to use maybe eighty-five percent of my story beats.”
Can I ask how you know this? The trailer wasn’t long and I’m still a bit confused as to what the movie is actually about and what any of the characters want, and I got a sense of a few beats but it’s really difficult to discern the beats of a two-hour-long movie from a trailer.
As for Fadeaway: “All right, guys, think Jumper meets Air Force One“. An idea like that is pretty much the definition of “high concept.” “Okay, guys, it’s like Speed but without the bus” (Crank). Your particular execution is like a big-budget, high-concept, action version of how Hollywood spun Idle Hands out of the gag from Evil Dead II.
It’s pretty obvious that of all the things Hollywood might ever value, originality might well be at the bottom of the list. Also, it’s terribly overrated. One could pretty easily make the argument that Shakespeare was really just the greatest plagiarist of all time.
I can tell you’re not a Hollywood writer, because you’ve made no mention of those other studios using government mind-reading radio signals to steal your ideas before you’ve written them. (Or, more mundanely, having broken into your house to peek at your scripts and totally rip them off before you finish them.)
Here’s a plot idea: Somali pirates hijack a cargo ship secretly transporting a female cyborg ninja that just happens to break free during the raid. And it’s up to the badass seen-it-all chef (Ving Rhames, who’ll spend five minutes at the beginning of the movie narrating the most awesome chili recipe ever) to save the day.
Hell, I was shit at directing a play I wrote in high school. I let my friend do the heavy lifting, and focused on getting the knee-to-the-crotch to look more realistic.
Aardy, there’s a comic about a guy’s inventions being stolen before he finishes them. The Un-[something I don’t remember, there are a lot of The Un- comics going]
Simpsons did it! 😀
WOO! I won.
Paul:
Yoink.
I just finished reading Small Gods for the first time. Fantastic book that. Between that and Reaper Man, I had no idea a Discworld book could pull that sort of reaction out of me.
I would support a Small Gods movie. I think it’s Pratchett’s second-best book overall (Night Watch taking the number one spot) and certainly his best stand-alone novel.
I would also support a Nation movie, and that seems like it would have an easier time getting an audience and sell better.
There’s been rumors of a Wee Free Men movie directed by Sam Raimi for a while now, but I get the feeling it isn’t going to happen.
Wow, I remember talking to you about Fadeaway, what, ten years ago? Probably more?
MarvinAndroid, I feel less bad for apparently skipping “Guards, Guards!” now. I’ll get to it. I’m about a quarter of the way through Night Watch now.
I would love to see Small Gods get more exposure. It’s my favorite Discworld book, and, frankly, the stand-alone of his that really works. (Plus, while it covers the same basic god principle as Gaiman’s American Gods, it did it first, and better.) May I ask what drew you to this particular Pratchett work?
Oooh, Well, if the film flops, at least there will be tasty, tasty chili.
The trouble with Midnight Men is that anyone seeing the title is going to think it’s that movie with Ben Stiller in it, and Janeane Garofolo with a haunted bowling ball.
Whereas my first thought when I heard of Daybreakers was that it was that Phillip Jose Farmer story about people being put into suspended animation six days out of seven so as to avoid the problems of massive overpopulation.
But the latter does sound good, and after it’s out I’d love to get a comparative review from you, talking about where your story diverges.
Except… if Daybreakers is a hit, you know there’ll be a dozen more movies rushed into production to capitalise on it, because the one thing Hollywood hates is a completely new idea. So maybe you’ll have a chance of being one of the “copycats”…
Kyle,
Like a lot of Pratchett’s earlier work, Guards! Guards! isn’t as strong as his later stuff. It’s still worth reading just to see the origins of Vimes, but he becomes a completely different character in the later books. It’s a ton of fun, and the book that gets a lot of people into the series as well.
Eric TF Bat: Your thinking of Mystery Men, which is the only Ben Stiller movie I can sit through and while they have similar titles you’d have to be an idiot to think that those things are even close to each other story wise.
I think everyone who saw the brilliant British cop procedural/vampire show Ultraviolet had the idea for a society were humans are processed as food for bloodsuckers…..god I miss that show.